Rawlings v. Taylor

477 S.W.2d 737
CourtMissouri Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 25, 1972
DocketNo. 25560
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 477 S.W.2d 737 (Rawlings v. Taylor) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Missouri Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rawlings v. Taylor, 477 S.W.2d 737 (Mo. Ct. App. 1972).

Opinion

SHANGLER, Chief Judge.

This appeal is the culmination of a sequence of proceedings and judgments by which appellant mother was first relieved, and then denied restoration, of the custody of her infant daughter Sabrina Jean Taylor. On June 11, 1970, the mother’s motion to restore the child to her custody was denied. The effect of that determination of rights, from which she now appeals, was to perpetuate the last custody order extant, believed by appellant to have been the judgment of March 27, 1969, which found neither parent a fit custodian and adjudged the custody of the child in the Juvenile Officer of Clay County for placement in a foster home.

The assignment of error initially briefed by appellant in effect charged that the un-contradicted evidence so decisively marks the changed circumstance of her recovery of fitness as custodian of the child as to require, in the best interest of the child, a modification of the custody order of March 27, 1969, and that the trial court’s failure to do so was clearly erroneous.

During the pendency of this appeal, however, appellant learned for the first time that the foster home in which Sabrina had been placed (and where she remains) by order of the Court — without notice to appellant mother — was that of the father, respondent Raymond Lee Taylor (who by then had remarried a former wife), although he as well as appellant had been adjudicated by that Court “not fit and proper persons to have (Sabrina’s) custody”, which adjudication had been neither modified nor otherwise superseded. Appellant became aware of this custodial placement when a box of clothing she had left with the Juvenile Officer for Sabrina was returned with a letter explaining that Mrs. Raymond Taylor, with whom the child was staying, found the nylon clothing unuseable by Sabrina who was allergic to that fabric. This much is conceded by respondent in his brief and oral argument.

This conceded state of facts is the basis for an additional assignment of error appellant raises in her reply brief. Appellant there also asserts that the placement of the child with the father, without notice to her and without evidence that he had regained his fitness and in open contradiction of the court’s own subsisting adjudication of March 27, 1969 that respondent was unfit and, further, the court’s failure to disclose this state of affairs to appellant during the hearing to modify the March 27, 1969 decree when even then the child was in respondent’s custody, bespeaks such a judicial disingenuousness and prejudice as appellant could not have dispelled no matter how cogent her evidence.

As approved by counsel and thereafter filed, the transcript on appeal is insufficient for a determination of either of the points of error raised. Civil Rules 82.12 (b) and 82.14(a) V.A.M.R. provide that the transcript shall contain “all of the record, recitals, proceedings, and evidence necessary to the determination of all questions presented to the appellate court for decision”. The questions presented, of course, are whether the court erred in denying appellant’s motion to regain custody of her child and whether, in doing so, the court acted fairly, without prejudice or prejudgment. Nowhere, however, does the transcript recite the actual terms or legal effect of the judgment of March 27, 1969, by which appellant and respondent were found unfit as custodians of the child, and by which appellant was deprived of custody and which she now seeks to modify. Nor does the transcript evidence show the con[739]*739ditions of unfitness initially adjudicated, so that the basis for appellate determination of change of condition is lacking. We found it necessary to a full decision of the questions presented to direct the circuit clerk to send up the full judgment entry of March 27, 1969, and, as also authorized by Civil Rule 82.12(c), V.A.M.R., ordered appellant to prepare and file a supplemental transcript of the evidence given in that proceeding. We concluded as well that appellant’s failure to include in her transcript the record entries relating to the transfer of the child to respondent after the judgment of March 27, 1969, which conceded fact came to her knowledge only after the commencement of appeal, was a material omission “by error or accident” correctible under Civil Rule 82.12(c). Accordingly, our order was certified to the circuit clerk, this time directing him to send up the original file as well as all judgments whatsoever entered in this cause.

Our conclusion that the entries relating to the transfer of custody to respondent, without hearing or notice to appellant, are properly a part of this record on appeal, comports with the rule that a reviewing court must take the record as it comes, and that statements in briefs of counsel of facts not shown in evidence, whatever the probability of their truth, may not be a basis for review of error, unless such facts have been conceded by opposing counsel. Baker v. Missouri National Life Insurance Company, Mo.App., 372 S.W.2d 147, 155 [11-13]; Pretti v. Herre, Mo., 403 S.W.2d 568, 569 [3]; State v. Muir, 136 Mo.App. 118, 117 S.W. 620, 621 [1], Moreover, to refuse review of appellant’s claim of judicial prejudice because not reflected in the trial record is, in the circumstances, to foreclose the possibility of such review altogether because the misconduct of which appellant complains is the concealment of judicial acts affecting her rights, by their nature not apparent of record.

The transcript on appeal as thus supplemented and resupplemented supports this statement of facts. Clara Jean Taylor, then 21 years old, married Raymond Lee Taylor on September 11, 1966. The child Sabrina was born to them on August 11, 1967. When the parties separated six weeks later, without resistance from Clara who was aware of his purpose but who then found it inconvenient to care for the child, Raymond took Sabrina to Boonville and delivered her to his former wife Lorraine Jackson for keeping. When Raymond found living quarters in Kansas City, Kansas in November of 1967, and although Raymond was still married to Clara, Lorraine and the child moved in with him (as did her two sons by a prior marriage). On February 29, 1968, Clara was granted a divorce by default on her petition and was awarded custody of the child although Sabrina had not been with her since she was six weeks old. Notwithstanding, the child continued in the actual custody of Raymond and Lorraine until January 3, 1969, when, after asking to see the child for the first time, Clara with the connivance of her present husband Levi Rawlings, spirited the child away from the Taylor home.

Shortly thereafter, Raymond Taylor filed his motion to set aside the divorce decree for fraud or, alternatively, to modify the decree as to custody. The fraud asserted was that he had been induced to forgo contest of the divorce petition and custody action by Clara’s representation that she would not disturb his continued custody of the child. Evidence was heard and, as we have noted, on March 27, 1969, the court determined that neither parent was a fit custodian and ordered custody of Sabrina in the Juvenile Officer of Clay County for placement in a foster home. Appellant mother believed her rights had been concluded by this judgment and submitted to its terms, including a visitation privilege imposed by the Juvenile Officer which stringently limits such visits to her office “under supervision”.

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Bluebook (online)
477 S.W.2d 737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rawlings-v-taylor-moctapp-1972.